Did you know that you had a limit of how many people you can follow on twitter? If you do, you probably found out by accident when you could no longer follow any more people or businesses. Most likely one of the first questions that popped into your head was, "then why can Justin Beiber follow 122,496people?" OK, maybe Justin Beiber didn't come to your mind ... sorry, I have 4 daughters ... but some famous person or brand that you relate to probably did. It is all about keeping a fairly even ratio. If you have more followers than you are following that is always good and you have plenty of room to follow, but if it is the other way around you need to be aware of the disproportion.

Is following as many potential clients and industry related brands a good twitter strategy given these limits?

Here is twitter's explanation as to why this is THE RULE.

Twitter's technical follow limits:-Every account can follow 2,000 users total. Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published. Follow limits cannot be lifted by Twitter and everyone is subject to limits, even high profile and API accounts.

-Every Twitter account is technically unable to follow more than 1,000 users per day, in addition to the account-based limits above. Please note that this is just a technical limit to prevent egregious abuse from spam accounts.

What to do if you've hit a follow limit: If you've reached the account-based follow limit (2,000 users), you’ll need to wait until you yourself have more followers before you can follow additional users. Follow limits are system-wide; Support cannot remove or adjust your follow limits.

To follow one or two additional users, unfollow a few accounts you're currently following. Please note, however, that regularly following and unfollowing many accounts is a violation of the Twitter Rulesand can result in account suspension.

Why Twitter limits following behavior: These limits help us improve site performance and reliability and help us make Twitter a nice place for everyone. We’ve included a more in-depth discussion of why we have follow limits on the Follow Limits and Best Practices Page.

So, what is a tweeter to do when they find themselves in this predicament?Open up your following page and keep in mind these tips to whittle down your following number.

Look for egg's - this usually signals inactivity. Anyone who hasn't bothered to upload their picture probably doesn't use twitter very much, or took their picture down when they stopped using twitter.

Look for the date of the last tweet - again, why follow someone who is not active and is therefore not seeing your tweets either.

Did they follow you back? If they aren't seeing your content then it is not helping your business to follow them.

Go back to the oldest people you followed - Ask yourself if they are someone who would be interested in your services or not?, do they share valuable information about your industry?, have you read a tweet from them recently?, would you miss them if they weren't there?

Once you are aware of these policies you may begin to feel like a twitter snob, evaluating each follow and whether it is worthy of your follow back. If you are feeling like you are going to develop a mid twitter life crisis over this new revelation of twitter not being all inclusive as you thought it would be, I recommend you read "Ted's twitter back policy". It may just inspire you to forget everything you just read above and establish one of your own. Here is an excerpt and my favorite point ...

4. Much more importantly (to me), here’s why I follow everyone back: I’m not more important than my followers. Indeed, I’m grateful every single time a person compliments me by following me. It’s their way of saying, “Hi Ted! I want to get to know you better.” For me to snub their kindness would be ungracious – and if I were ungracious, I couldn’t look my Mother in the eye. [I'm on a lifelong crusade against arrogance. We'll leave it at that.]

If you need help putting together an effective social media strategy, contact me and we can come up with a plan. It may not be about how many you are following, but rather how you are using twitter that could make a difference.